


Shore Leave

by Sholio



Category: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Bonding, Friendship, Gen, Growing Old Together, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28191405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: The last time Meg was on Mariner Station, it had been a different place. She remembered bright lights and shops, merchanters swaggering in ship colors, hawkers waving discount tapes and vids and jewelry. Dazzling, to a Belter not long out of Sol System, whose idea of high life and big city for years had been Helldeck on R2.But it was different now, gray and huge and echoing, most of the bars and shops closed down.
Relationships: Sal Aboujib & Meg Kady
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Shore Leave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Senji (Larilille)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larilille/gifts).



The last time Meg was on Mariner Station, it had been a different place. She remembered bright lights and shops, merchanters swaggering in ship colors, hawkers waving discount tapes and vids and jewelry. Dazzling, to a Belter not long out of Sol System, whose idea of high life and big city for years had been Helldeck on R2.

But it was different now, gray and huge and echoing, most of the bars and shops closed down. Security everywhere, walking around with weapons prominent. Big signs telling people to report suspicious activity, don't leave packages unattended, anyone without a ship patch would be taken to security until they could be reunited with their crew. _Lots_ of Fleet walking around. Other ships, not theirs, and when had "theirs" meant _Norway_ and only _Norway?_ But it did. Same as merchanters, maybe. You and your ship. Fleet wasn't just Fleet these days. You trusted your back to your crew, but you could never really be sure of anyone else.

Three Fleet ships in dock right now. Three. Used to be you never saw more than one unless you were in Sol System. Captain Mallory closeted with the other captains for a consult that stretched onward into alterday. Not good, that kind of shit.

Meg found herself walking close to Sal, hip at hip, and she didn't think she was the only one wondering if it was really a good idea to go off on their own, not even taking the boys along. There was safety in numbers, and most of the Norways, all but a few who'd wandered off to explore like Meg and Sal, were back at one of the few open bars near the Norway's docking slot.

But sometimes it was nice to go off together, just the two of them, like it used to be. Before _Norway,_ back in the Belt, when they used to spend months in a tin can together. There was precious little opportunity these days, with all of them living on top of each other. Nowhere on a ship _Norway's_ size to get away. And sometimes a girl just needed to stretch her legs and have some one-on-one time with her old partner, her other half.

Especially when Sal and her bed-partner were not exactly getting along.

Sal was the only person Meg had met who was truly sympatico with Ben, aside from Bird some days, and Dekker in some deeply weird and probably messed-up kind of way that was hard to figure. In any case, Sal and Ben usually clicked together like a couple of relays, and it was clear that Ben had really fucked up if Sal was this mad at him. The best diplomatic solution she could think of was Sal out for drinks and an ears-only bitchfest, while Dekker handled Ben, for whatever value of "handling" that Dekker was capable of. It wouldn't surprise her to come back and find the two of them in the brig, but honestly, she didn't mind the excuse for some breathing room.

So they ended up at a bar all the way down on the end of green dock, occupied mostly by stationers and a rowdy bunch from a merchanter ship whose patches Meg didn't recognize. It wasn't the most relaxing place; there was a lot of security around here too, some drinking off-duty and others just hanging around. But at least they could find a table in a corner, have some beers that weren't too bad, and just catch their breath for a few minutes.

"War, you think?" Sal said. "Terrorist?"

"What, the flic?" Meg dropped back into rabspeak a little. "What else, you think?"

Once, it had seemed that the war would be over in just a few years, leaving them all free to look ahead to the rest of their lives with a generous Fleet pension. If she was honest with herself, Meg never thought they'd see actual combat. At most she assumed the _Norway_ would be stationed in Sol System to patrol for incoming rocks and send the riders to deal with them if it happened.

This ... she hadn't expected this. War dragging on for year after year, no end in sight, Fleet stretched thin and stations battening down as the trade that was their lifeblood dried up.

"The _everything,"_ Sal said. She took a long drink of her beer. "Beer was better in the old days."

"You getting old, Aboujib? Good old days and all that?"

Sal snorted and made a rude gesture.

"So you want to talk about you and Ben?"

Sal gave a short laugh. "I need to be a lot drunker than this."

"No, but really. If it affects the team—"

"It's nothing like that," Sal said, and it seemed that she had seen through to Meg's real fear. Back in the Belt, partners broke up for all kinds of reasons. Made it more likely, sometimes, if there was sex in the mix. And something like that could crack them down the middle. "No, it's just Ben being Ben."

"Well, that covers a multitude of sins, doesn't it?"

Sal laughed. She gestured for another beer.

"Want to place bets they'll be in trouble by the time we get back?"

"I think they can get through an entire alterday on station without getting into a bar fight."

"Really," Meg said. She slapped a hand on the table. "I'll take that action."

Sal laughed again, and something in her let go, some tight-wound wire of tension that suddenly snapped and let her relax, sinking back into her chair in the heavier gravity. Close to one gee on Mariner's docks. Their bones were going to hurt, come morning. Right now Meg didn't care. There was music playing in the background of the bar, and she didn't know the song or the band or even the style of music—stationer band? New music from Sol, come in on merchanter tape bank?—but she liked it. Easy to forget, out there in the deep cold black, that bars were a thing, music was a thing, dancing was a thing.

"What do you say we find ourselves some pretty boys or girls to dance with?" she said.

Sal snorted and drank half her fresh beer in one go. "One boy's about all I can take. More than enough, some days."

"So me then," Meg said, and held out a hand.

There were some couples out on the dance floor, threesomes too. Meg led Sal and then went into a quick-step dance move that was probably fifty years out of date, out here. More than that. But Sal caught on quick, and they got some of the other couples moving too. Her hips and ankles were going to kill her in the mainday morning, but tonight she was here, she was _on_ , and the war was lightyears away, not close enough to prickle down her spin with its cold fingers. Sal leaned in close and held her, head tucked against her chest and braids showing the first thin twists of gray trickling down Meg's _Norway_ coveralls, and she didn't regret any of the decisions she'd made, _couldn't_ regret it, not when it had brought her all of this.

**Author's Note:**

> "flic" = slang for cops in French. (Thanks, Engrenages, for teaching me this.) It seemed rab-ish.


End file.
